Manufacturing crisis

Divide-and-conquer politics against the Canadian Federation of Students

James Clark
Features and Opinions Editor

“A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”

American humorist and writer Mark Twain said this more than a hundred years ago. But in the age of online communication, Twain’s words ring even more true today. As such, they contain a warning for contemporary journalists: wield your craft responsibly. Sadly, too few writers heed Twain’s advice, especially on the Internet.

Nowhere else but in the cyber-world does the concept of “Truth” take such a beating. So much writing that claims to be “objective”—whether online or in print—is actually a confusing mix of opinion, “agenda-positioning” and manipulated fact. But this isn’t always obvious, since writers can disguise their bias as “anecdotes” or “expert opinions”.

The world of student journalism is not exempt from this practice. In fact, busy student journalists can easily fall prey to the spin of more savvy and experienced writers. It also demonstrates how quickly a story can be repeated, re-tweeted and retold. As long as it contains just a shred of truth, accuracy and fact are not so important.

A recent news story from the McGill Daily is a good case in point. In late September, the newspaper confidently asserted that students on 13 campuses across Canada are attempting to de-federate from the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS). The article seems to suggest that a growing movement of disenfranchised students is leaving the CFS en masse. But it draws this conclusion on weak claims—each one attributed to “many students” or “other organizers.”

Most first-year journalism students learn about the standard journalistic practice of attribution—that is, naming your sources and establishing their credibility. But the author of the McGill Daily piece, Erin Hale, fails to name all her sources, despite the gravity of their claims. Of those she does name, none are subjected to the kind of scrutiny that would test their credibility. Instead, she accepts their words at face value.

For example, Hale quotes only one student at Trent University, James Murphy, as if he represents the broader student population. She fails to mention that Murphy recently came last in a three-way race for president during elections at the Trent Central Student Association. By contrast, Trent’s independent student newspaper, Arthur, had seen no evidence at the time Hale’s article was published to support Murphy’s claim that his fellow-students are clamouring to leave the CFS.

Hale later quotes a student at Guelph University, who is also allegedly collecting signatures to leave the CFS.

But she doesn’t identify her source. As a result, the de facto representative for all students at Guelph is a faceless, anonymous figure. No one can challenge his claims, investigate his political affiliations, or hold him accountable for his comments.

It’s not just these gaffes that undermine the McGill Daily article. Hale commits the cardinal sin of misspelling the name of a publicly identifiable source: CFS Treasurer Dave Molenhuis, the only voice in the piece that defends the CFS. In first-year reporting classes, errors like this guarantee a failing grade.

In April, the Ryerson Free Press reported that the Ontario Progressive Conservative Campus Association (OPCCA) had hosted training sessions that explained how conservative students could manipulate the democratic process of student groups. According to a leaked agenda from a session at Laurier, conservative students identified two targets: the CFS and Ontario Public Research Interest Groups (OPIRGs).
While it remains unclear whether rumoured CFS de-federation drives are the product of Progressive Conservative Party directives, enough evidence exists to finger campus conservative clubs. But most articles about this topic either overlook or ignore this connection.

At Carleton, for example, well-known campus conservative Dean Tester recently issued a press release announcing his intention to circulate a petition to quit the CFS. Tester, who ran unsuccessfully in student union elections, has not exactly won widespread support on campus—at least as far as elections are concerned. Nor is he representative of the student body: Tester is a conservative blogger (www.alwaysright.ca), the communications director for a Conservative party hopeful in Ottawa, and part of the “We Want Out” campaign on Facebook.

Carleton’s campus newspaper The Charlatan named Tester and activist Brandon Wallingford, another failed candidate in student union elections, and member of the Carleton Campus Conservatives, as the campaign organisers.

Here’s the irony: a small group of anti-CFS activists has engaged in the same kind of tactics it condemns for the CFS. A common refrain is the complaint that students from other CFS campuses should not be allowed to participate in local debates over CFS membership—even though students have the right to hear why other students and campuses support the CFS.

But this same group is silent when it comes to the activity of anti-CFS campaigners from off campus. Somehow this contradiction has yet to appear in the wider campus press.

Another example: former editor-in-chief of The Concordian Andrew Haig, a Concordia student newspaper, was recently photographed at Carleton while petitioning students to leave the CFS. And another: Former student Devon Monkhouse a former executive member of the conservative Regan-Goldwater Society at Carleton and of the Carleton Campus Conservatives (at least on Facebook), was also on hand to collect signatures.

These extra-campus actions extend well beyond Carleton. On September 25, Adrian Kaats—past-vice-president of the Post-Graduate Student Society of McGill University and a well known critic of the CFS—was spotted at Trent collecting signatures for a referendum over CFS membership.

The McGill Daily article, and most of the ones that have since followed their lead, fails to report any of these facts. If they did, not many students would be left with the impression that a groundswell of anti-CFS sentiment is building on Canadian campuses. Instead, they would see the activity of a small number of conservative dissidents, attempting to rally support for a generally unpopular cause.

To omit this counter-perspective is both misleading and unfair. Unfortunately, it’s all too common.
Instead of finding ways to unite the student movement over issues that affect everyone, some students prefer to pursue internal division and strife—and often over petty personal politics. The student movement is facing far more pressing issues.

In Quebec, where the McGill Daily article first appeared, the Liberal government has announced its plans to introduce tuition fees at provincial colleges (CEGEPs), a move that would radically alter post-secondary education. It would also represent an historic defeat for Quebec’s student movement that, until now, has enjoyed the most accessible post-secondary education in Canada.
In Ontario, this semester represents an unprecedented opportunity for students to influence the government’s tuition fee and funding policies, since the current framework soon expires. But with students internally focused on manufactured divisions, they risk missing their chance to exercise the strength of a united student movement. The only beneficiaries are the politicians, who can more easily dismiss a student movement fighting amongst itself.

It’s unlikely that conservative activists on campus will anytime soon give up their attempts to use the student union for their own ends. That’s fine; it’s their right to try all they want.

But student journalists have a responsibility to expose and report on this activity, in an honest and accountable manner. Their job is not to manufacture a crisis, and then treat it as fact. Their job is to engage and inform students, and to draw their attention to the issues that really matter.